Logan's Blog

Ms McDuff uses baseball as a metaphor for the US economy. Teams in baseball do not have a salary cap. So, the rich teams like New York and Boston are able to get the best players while the poorer teams such as the Oakland A's are stuck with doing the best with what is left over from the larger market teams. She states that, "creative thinking and risk-taking can change the game of baseball, but also the world. The Oakland A's questioned an existing recruiting system that had worked for 150 years: those questions threatened a way of life for the scouts. Such is the perceived threat faced by the mega-rich today in our country. Many of the protesters on Wall Street are youth, who face an 18 percent unemployment rate, double the national average. Using a sports metaphor, Washington Post opinion writer James Downie states, 'youth have skin in this game,' especially given that the average college graduate carries $27,000 in debt at graduation. Only imaginative thinking will sustain a vibrant, civil society that now includes young and old, rich and poor." It is a bit vague what she is comparing the existing recruiting system of 150 years. If she is wanting her audience to question the free market system that the writers of the constitution set up I think it's not direct enough.